This is a BLOG from Mark Cochrane of Business Strategies Group in Hong Kong. We've been keeping a close watch on B2B media and business information in Asia since 2000 and look forward to sharing insights with you.

Friday, January 18, 2013

News this week:
Last week, China’s largest e-commerce company, Alibaba
Group, announced it will undergo another major restructuring to adapt to
China’s changing e-commerce environment and reaching the company’s goal of becoming
an e-commerce “ecosystem”.

The latest Alibaba restructuring sees the company divided
into 25 business units, which will be overseen by two committees – a strategic
committee and an execution committee primarily made up of nine top company
managers. The new units will include retail and wholesale e-commerce, data
mining and cloud computing.

Alibaba Group’s CFO Joe Tsai, was quoted saying, “Rather
than looking at six or seven big business groups, each of the 25 units could be
a significant player in their industry and be very influential. For example,
for the first time we have broken out the (online) travel category as a
separate business unit on par with Tmall.”

In a separate announcement this week, Alibaba’s chairman and
CEO Jack Ma confirmed he will step down as CEO of the company on 10th
May 2013. Ma will remain as executive chairman of Alibaba to focus more on the
company’s strategic direction, developing the company's managerial talent, and
strengthening Alibaba’s social-responsibility efforts.

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